TradesPlasterersPricing and profit

Plasterer Business PricingPer sheet or per square metre, you picked the number off what the market pays, not what it costs you.

Pricing for plastering business owners: what to charge per sheet, per square metre and per hour so the number covers award labour, materials, waste, travel and the callbacks, and still leaves a margin worth working for.

A painted scene of a plasterer reaching up to set the joints of a new plasterboard ceiling, the sheets still showing their stopping patches

The week this is about

Sound Like Your Plastering Business?

Your rate came from what the last bloke charged

You set your per square metre rate by asking around and shading it a little to win the run. Nothing in that number came from your own labour cost, your own waste, your own travel or the days you lose waiting for a frame.

Level 5 gets quoted at level 4 money

The spec says flat under critical lighting, the builder says just do it properly, and you price it like a standard set. Then you skim the whole wall twice, sand it again and wear the extra days out of your own margin.

The volume work keeps you busy and broke

The builder offers a whole estate at a tight rate and you take it because it fills the crew. Twelve months later the trucks are rolling, everyone is flat out, and there is no more money in the bank than when you started.

A rate that is a few dollars per square metre short does not look like much on one job, but across a year of volume work it is the whole wage you never paid yourself.

A trade business owner working alone at the kitchen table late at night, laptop open and paperwork spread across the table, work boots and tool bag by the door

Pricing and profit

Here Is What We Do About It.

The Profitable Pricing Masterclass shows you how to build a rate from your own costs, and the Profit & Freedom Masterclass shows you what to do with the margin once it is there. The Learning Hub and Greg then hold the price when the builder pushes back.

Free tool, no sign-up

Charge-out rate calculator

Put in what labour costs you, how many hours you can actually invoice and what the business spends, and it builds the rate that covers all of it and leaves a margin. It runs in your browser and nothing you type is sent anywhere.

Work out your rate

How it works

Three Steps, Starting Tonight.

Step 1

Work out what an hour really costs you

Not the wage. The wage plus the ute, the insurance, the phone, the unbilled hours and the time you spend quoting. Most owners have never put that number on paper.

Step 2

Price off the number, not off the last bloke

The Profitable Pricing Masterclass takes you through building a rate that carries your overheads and a margin, so you stop pricing against whoever is cheapest this month.

Step 3

Hold the price and watch what happens

The Profit and Freedom Masterclass covers the part nobody warns you about: what to do when someone pushes back, and why losing the wrong job is a win.

Greg Allan mid-explanation with his hands open, talking to a trade business owner across a desk

Why Greg

You speak to the owner who has already done it.

Greg built Response Electricians in Perth into a 30+ staff business with 1,950+ five-star reviews. A general manager runs it.

He has trained 9,000+ trade business owners across Australia and New Zealand.

He grew a coaching company to 35 staff, a CEO and 15 coaches, then cut it back so every owner deals with him directly.

Most coaching companies hand you to a salesperson, then to a coach who has never run a trade business. Here you get the owner.

Read how Greg built a trade business that runs without him

What changes for you

The old way. The new way.

Illustration: a trade business owner standing over three office staff buried in paperwork at night.
The old way

More customers meant more people doing the computer work, and more wages nobody invoices.

Illustration: a tradesman shaking hands with a homeowner in her driveway, his phone showing jobs quoted and invoiced.
The new way

You stay with your customers and your team. The office stops landing on you.

The old way

More jobs. More paperwork. Less of the owner left.

Most trade businesses grow the same way.

More jobs means more quoting, invoicing, chasing and scheduling.

None of it gets paid for.

So the owner does it at night, after a full day on site.

Or hires an office person to do it.

The office grows. The wages grow. The margin does not.

And the owner is still the one everything waits on.

Where we take you

More work. More profit. More of you left.

The phone rings with the jobs you want, at the price you set.

You grow when you're ready, never faster than the business can carry.

Every job is priced to make money, so the busy months show up in the bank.

The best tradies in your area want to work for you, and they stay.

The chasing, the paperwork and the 9pm admin stop landing on you.

The business runs the day. You pick which parts of it you're in.

Bigger, without the headaches. Getting bigger stops meaning getting busier.

What changes

What Plastering Business Pricing Actually Changes.

Three things plastering business owners walk away able to do.

Build a per square metre rate from your own labour, waste and travel costs

Quote a level 5 finish at a price that pays for the extra coats

Walk away from volume work that keeps the crew busy and loses money

A trade business owner watching his child play sport on a Saturday morning, coffee in hand and phone face down
Nights and weekends back
A trade business owner and his partner in the kitchen looking at a tablet showing the numbers going up
Work that actually pays
A trade business owner shaking hands with a new apprentice in the work yard
A good hire who stays
A trade business owner standing calmly in the yard while his crew load two utes behind him
Out of the middle of everything
9,000+tradies trained4.9★Google rating4.9★App Store rating

Questions

Plasterer Business Pricing, Answered.

What should a plasterer charge per square metre in Australia?
There is no single right number, and every cost guide on that search is written for homeowners, not for you. Your rate has to start from your labour cost under the Building and Construction General On-site Award, plus materials, waste, travel, overheads and the margin you want. The Profitable Pricing Masterclass builds it properly.
How much more should I charge for a level 5 finish?
Enough to cover the extra work it actually takes: the full skim coat over the whole surface, extra sanding and the higher risk of a callback under critical lighting. Price it off measured hours, not a percentage guess, and get the level of finish written into the quote before you start.
What margin should a plastering business be making?
The ATO publishes small business benchmarks for plastering and ceiling services, showing typical expense-to-turnover ratios across the industry, which gives you a fair reference point rather than a rumour from the site shed. Then work out yours job by job. Profit & Freedom Masterclass covers turning that margin into money you keep.
A painted scene of a trade business owner home before dark, sitting on the tray of his ute while his son runs to meet him

Join the Waitlist to Work With Greg.

The Crew, daily Q&A and starter courses. Free for trade business owners. No card, no trial clock.

The Academy is at full capacity. Join the waitlist and when a place opens, Greg interviews the owners who look like the right fit.